Attack of the Smart Quotes
by Meghan Elizabeth
Summary: When O'Brien links an 'antique' computer to the station, he unleashes an unknown enemy.


Chief Miles O'Brien looked at the rectangular box that had been placed on the table by his daughter, Molly. "What is it?"  
  
Molly's face wore an exasperated expression. "It's a computer, daddy."  
  
O'Brien knew what a computer looked like and this box on the table was not a computer. "Who told you that, sweetheart?"  
  
"Mommy did. It's an antic."  
  
Antic? O'Brien was still confused.  
  
Laughing, Keiko entered the room. "That's 'antique,' Molly." She turned to her husband. "Quark got it for me. It's a computer from the twentieth century. I was showing it to the children for our lesson on the history of computers."  
  
O'Brien continued to eye the box. "This. . .is a computer?"  
  
Keiko laughed again. "Yes." She leaned down and pulled up the screen. Then, she pushed a button on the side. The sound of whirling parts was heard as the computer started. The screen came to life, but remained black. Then a picture appeared on the screen for a few minutes while it warmed up.  
  
"Microsoft Windows? What's that?"  
  
"That's the operating system many of the computers used during that time."  
  
O'Brien nodded. He sat down at the computer and began to explore it's mysteries. Molly showed him how a little ball at the bottom of the box was used to navigate around the screen and that they keys were used to input information into the computer. It was just so different from the computers he was used to using, even the Cardassian pieces of junk on the station. Before long, he found himself unable to remove himself from the computer.  
  
"Miles."  
  
"Just a minute, hon."  
  
"Miles."  
  
"I said just a minute, hon."  
  
"Okay, sweetheart."  
  
That wasn't Keiko. It had been the first time, but it wasn't now. O'Brien looked up and saw Julian standing in front of the table with a grin on his face. "Very funny."  
  
Noting that O'Brien wasn't appreciating his sense of humor, Julian went over to the computer. "What is so intriguing that you can't tear yourself away from that computer?"  
  
Not mentioning that he hadn't recognized it as a computer, O'Brien replied, "It's amazing how so much computer use depended on the user. It rarely did anything on its own, unless prompted to do so or you had a program installed to do it. All input had to be done though the key or mouse."  
  
"Mouse? Where?"  
  
Laughing at the doctor's mistake, O'Brien replied, "The mouse was a device used to navigate the screen."  
  
Julian nodded. "I see."  
  
"One advantage over our system is privacy."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Well, here if you want to make a log about one of your patients, anyone around can overhear. If you were to use this system, you could type it in and no one would know what you were typing. It might take longer and you couldn't do two things at once anymore, but with your speedy fingers, I'm sure you'd do fine."  
  
The doctor considered the thought. "Hmmm. You've got a point there. About the privacy issue, anyway. Would it be possible to create a way to link this computer to ours?"  
  
"I don't see why not. I'll get started right away." O'Brien stood and went out the door.  
  
Julian looked at Keiko, who was shaking her head. "I guess this means we're not playing darts." He sighed at sat down on a chair. "I got all my work done early. Now what am I going to do?"  
  
Molly re-entered the room and saw Julian. "Are you busy?"  
  
Julian looked at her. "No."  
  
Molly grinned. "Good. Then we can have a tea party." She grabbed Julian's hand.  
  
Julian stood, unable to think of an excuse.  
  
Keiko smiled at him. "Don't worry, Julian. It sounds like your cup of -"  
  
Julian nodded. "I know, tea. Very cute." As Molly dragged him to her room and informed him of the rules of the tea party, Julian suspected he might have been better off to offer O'Brien his assistance in connecting the two computer systems.  
  
  
  
"I've got it!" yelled O'Brien as he entered his quarters.  
  
"Thank God."  
  
"Julian, what are you still doing here?"  
  
The doctor emerged, wearing one of Keiko's kimono's over his uniform. He quickly took it off and handed it to Keiko, who held back a smile.  
  
O'Brien, however, held nothing back. Laughing, he asked. "What the hell were you wearing that for?"  
  
"Molly decided that Julian need to dress the part for their Japanese tea party," Keiko replied.  
  
Julian straightened out some imaginary wrinkles on his uniform. "Alright, what's you solution?" he said, his voice slightly lower than usual.  
  
O'Brien ignored the doctor's antics and explained his solution.  
  
Julian nodded. "Sounds good, although I'm no computer expert. Perhaps you should talk to Jadzia."  
  
"Good idea. I'll do that right now," O'Brien replied, starting for the door.  
  
Julian glanced at the kimono in Keiko's hand and then the door. "I'll come with you," he said, bolting for the door.  
  
  
  
Jadzia Dax listened intently to O'Brien's idea for linking the two computer systems. She nodded when he finished. "Sounds like it will work, although I don't know why you'd want to use such an old system."  
  
Julian explained about the privacy issue.   
  
"Whatever you say. You're the ones who will be using it. Although, I would speak to the captain before making any changes to the computer system."  
  
"What kind of changes?"  
  
The captain had just emerged from his office. O'Brien explained.  
  
"Sounds like an interesting idea. Go ahead," Sisko replied.  
  
"Thank you, sir," O'Brien said.  
  
"Need a hand?" Julian asked.  
  
"Not from you," O'Brien replied. "When the computer gets a virus, maybe I'll call you to keep it company."  
  
"What am I supposed to do?" Julian muttered.  
  
"Have a tea party!" O'Brien replied as the turbolift started and moved him away from Ops.  
  
Sisko and Dax looked at Julian, who was slowly turned red. "Tea party?"  
  
  
  
Julian smiled to himself. He had just typed up a patient file and was getting ready to transfer it to the infirmary computer. "Computer, transfer file to patient records."  
  
The computer replied as moment later, stating that it had completed the transfer.  
  
Julian opened the file to make sure that it had transferred correctly. To his horror, there were strange symbols at various spots on the screen. The computer provided no help in figuring out where they had come from. Finally, he called O'Brien. "Chief, I'm having a bit of trouble with your program? Can you come check it out?"  
  
"On my way."  
  
O'Brien had no idea as well. After a little searching, Julian figured out that the places where the symbols were now were where quotes had been in the original document. "It looks like it had a little trouble converting."  
  
"But why?"  
  
They checked the help files on the twentieth century computer and found it had a feature called "smart-quotes." Smart quotes were quotation marks that curved toward the word before or after it, depending on whether it was the first or last quotation mark. Julian, not knowing about the feature, had inserted them into the document when quoting a reference. Apparently, when converting documents containing these marks, the other program would read them as gibberish and show the symbols on Julian's screen.   
  
"That's it?" O'Brien asked.  
  
"Looks like it. Sorry I dragged you here for that."  
  
"No problem. Just turn the off the smart quotes and you should be fine."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
Julian sat back down at his desk and continued working, glad that his smart quote worries were over.  
  
  
  
Jadzia Dax was running a diagnostic on the computer system. She wanted to make sure O'Brien's experiment with the almost 400 year old computer hadn't done anything to the station's system. The results popped up on her screen and she gasped when she saw them. In various places in the text, instead of words, there were strange symbols. It had to be something from O'Brien's modifications. She tapped her comm badge and asked the Chief to come check it out.  
  
  
  
"How could you have smart quotes in the diagnostic log? There aren't supposed to be any quotation marks!" O'Brien exclaimed after examining Jadzia's screen.  
  
"Don't ask me."  
  
"This has to be a result of Julian's file."  
  
"What file?"  
  
O'Brien explained.   
  
"But how would that cause my screen to show these symbols instead of the letters?"  
  
O'Brien shook his head. "I have no idea."  
  
  
  
"Here are the profit estimates you wanted, brother," Rom said as he placed a padd down on the bar.  
  
Quark's eyes lit up. He'd asked Rom to bring the padd to him so that he could compare the estimates with the actual profit of the last month. He picked up the padd.   
  
"How did we do?" Rom asked.  
  
Quark slammed the padd down.  
  
"Is it that bad?"   
  
Quark eyed his brother. "What kind of a joke is that? Where are the real estimates?"  
  
Rom picked up the padd. "These are the real estimates."  
  
Quark to the padd from Rom and held it up to his brother's face. "Do those look like profit estimates to you?"  
  
Rom looked at the padd. Instead of numbers, there were symbols on the screen. "No."  
  
"Now what happened to the estimates?"  
  
"I-I -don't know," Rom stammered.  
  
"Well, find out!" Quark bellowed.  
  
"Yes, sir!" Rom replied, saluting his brother.  
  
Quark shook his head. Sometimes he wished he was an only child.  
  
  
  
"You telling me that these 'smart quotes' are everywhere? In every system?" Sisko asked. Dax had come to him after she and O'Brien had found no cause for the malfunction of her monitor.   
  
Dax nodded. "They appear to be multiplying, sir."  
  
"Multiplying? Are you saying they're alive?"  
  
"They appear to be so, sir," Julian replied.  
  
"These 'characters' from a word processing program from the twentieth century have somehow developed sentience and are now wreaking havoc on our systems?"  
  
"I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's true," O'Brien said.  
  
"Do you have any idea how?"  
  
"We think it has something to do with the energy and size of our system. You see, the smart quotes never had the opportunity on their previous computers to evolve. They had neither the energy or the computer memory. Now that they are on our system, they, like the nanites, have evolved to sentience in a matter of days," Dax explained.  
  
"Well, how do we extract them from our system?"  
  
"They seem to be drawn to text documents. Perhaps if we created one large file on the twentieth century computer, they would be drawn to that. If the file were large enough, once the smart quotes entered the document, the hard disk would be full. The computer would use all it's memory and would eventually crash, taking the smart quotes with it."  
  
"I hate to do it, but if it's the only way to save our system. . ."  
  
"Is that an order?  
  
Sisko nodded. "Yes, it is."  
  
  
  
  
"Okay, I'm opening the file on the computer."  
  
Dax turned to O'Brien. "Are you linked to our system?"  
  
The Chief nodded. "Get ready to terminate the link once the smart quotes have moved."  
  
"Ready and waiting."  
  
O'Brien watched the screen as he closed the document and reopened it under a different format. One that did not support smart quotes. The symbols appeared. "Terminate link!"  
  
Dax obeyed.   
  
O'Brien saw a window pop up on the screen, indicating that the computer was out of memory. Despite this, more symbols appeared. Then, it stopped. The computer was out of memory and therefore couldn't continue. "Beam our 'antique' out into space."  
  
The small computer shimmered and disappeared. It reappeared on the viewscreen.  
  
Sisko glanced at the screen and then at Dax. "Fire."  
  
Dax obeyed and a phaser shot out at the computer. It exploded into a million pieces.  
  
"Goodbye, smart quotes!" cheered O'Brien.  
  
  
  
Julian turned to one of his nurses. "Could you get me that padd off my desk?"  
  
The nurse nodded and brought him the padd.  
  
"Thank you." Julian looked down and the padd and was stunned when he saw what was on it. The entire document was smart quote symbols. 


End file.
